New urbanism design and thoughtful approach win awards for two developments

Chris Elkey, Senior Director Real Estate at Canada Lands Company, looks over a site plan for Currie development. Currie won an award for Charter Award for Neighbourhood, District, and Corridor by the Chicago-based Congress of New Urbanism. File / Calgary Herald

A pair of residential development projects with strong ties to Calgary’s military have been named winners of prestigious design and planning awards.

Currie, a mixed-use, master-planned community being created on the former site of CFB Calgary by Canada Lands Company (CLC), has been presented with Charter Award for Neighbourhood, District, and Corridor by the Chicago-based Congress of New Urbanism.

The award was presented to the federal Crown corporation for exemplifying the principles of new urbanism, says a Congress news release. New urbanism is a design movement promoting environmentally friendly habits by creating walkable neighbourhoods with a wide range of housing and job types.

“This award demonstrates that the new urbanist approach to development is strong and growing stronger in Calgary,” says Chris Elkey, CLC’s senior director of real estate.

“People no longer need to look outside of Calgary or south of the border to find an excellent example of the application of new urbanist planning principles in master-planned communities.”

Currie is a 79-hectacre development on Crowchild Trail south that, when completed in 15 to 20 years, will be home to an estimated population of 12,000 living in approximately 5,700 homes from single-detached to high-rise condominiums.

Currently, work is progressing on the first and second phases.

Currie will also include 615,000 square feet of office and institutional space, 245,000 square feet of retail space, and 23 acres of green space.

Just north of Currie and across the Bow River on Kensington Road, a major redevelopment of the Canadian Legion North Branch No. 264 lands is being undertaken by a partnership of the legion branch and Truman Development Corp.

Unique in many ways, the project was named winner of an Award of Merit by the Canadian Institute of Planners for its “model approach” to the development approval process.

“The jury appreciated how community concerns were addressed in the (approval) submission,” says the institute. It also commended the submission for the potential to be able to recreate similar projects on other legion sites in Canada.

On land measuring 0.89 hectares, the development will have two elements. The first will house the new Kensington Legion, along with office space, in a four-storey building. The second will be the site of an eight-storey market-rate multi-residential building with a ground-level commercial-retail podium.

“Truman is proud to partner with local Canadian veterans to achieve an innovative new model of community building between the development industry and social organizations like the Canadian Legion,” says Truman president George Trutina.

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